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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25262131">Home is where the arc is</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Peer_Parker/pseuds/Peer_Parker'>Peer_Parker</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Adoption, Angst, Dark May Parker (Spider-Man), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Homelessness, Hurt/Comfort, Neglect</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 06:54:48</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,773</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25262131</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Peer_Parker/pseuds/Peer_Parker</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>For the Friendly Neighbourhood Exchange.</p><p>"He still patrolled as Spider-Man every evening, stopped Karen from reporting his current living situation to Mr Stark, and everything went fine.<br/>Well, as fine as being homeless could be."</p><p>OR</p><p>Peter becomes homeless, and thinks that he can sort everything out on his own. Too bad that Tony Stark has other plans.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Peter Parker &amp; Tony Stark</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>289</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Irondad Creators Awards 2021 - Nominations, The Friendly Neighborhood Exchange</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Home is where the arc is</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/starbird16/gifts">starbird16</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is a pinch-hit story for the Friendly Neighbourhood exchange. I fulfilled the second prompt. It was a tough decision to choose a prompt, giftee, since all of them looked fun to write. I hope this is okay!</p><p>This story contains a homeless character. I tried my best and did research, however it may not be entirely accurate to the experience, so keep that in mind. </p><p>Hope you enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Peter wasn’t the best at keeping secrets, however, it helped that he had a lot of secrets to keep. Back in the times… <em>before</em>, he might have given away his secret identity as Spider-Man to Ned, May, and the Vulture, however, now he had more secrets to contend with. In the past, life had seemed relatively easy, and thus, maybe he’d had the luxury of being frivolous with classified information. He’d had a best friend to accidentally reveal his identity to. He’d had a room to flaunt his Spider suit in. Had an aunt to walk in on him changing into it.</p><p>Now that things were different, now that he worked a busy job with a measly pay to afford food to scarf down in alleyways, keeping his secrets close to his chest was perhaps all that he had control over.</p><p>It’d been a couple of months before everything had happened, and Peter was somewhat proud to say that he hadn’t given away his secrets to anyone. He still patrolled as Spider-Man every evening, stopped Karen from reporting his current living situation to Mr Stark, and everything went fine.</p><p>Well, as fine as being homeless could be. Being Spider-Man meant that, sometimes, he would lose his current job through matter of priorities. It didn’t matter. He’d always find another job. Being Spider-Man meant that the small amount of food he could afford was never enough to satiate his ravenous enhanced hunger. It was fine. It was enough. Being Spider-Man meant that he thought he was strong enough to deal with this on his own. It wasn’t fine.</p><p>But, he argued, who was meant to help? He was technically still living with May (unless she’d wanted to let the authorities know how she’d kicked her nephew to the curb because he was a teenaged superhero). There was no way he’d want to try and get help from social services. Whilst he didn’t want to go down the foster route, he also knew there was no argument for him to build his case on—he couldn’t tell them that he was Spider-Man.</p><p>He wasn’t sure what the school had thought of his absence. Maybe, May had come up with some lengthy excuse. Maybe she’d pulled him out of Midtown Tech. He didn’t know. There were a lot of uncertainties in life, these days.</p><p>What he did know, was that he couldn’t call Tony for help on this one. Even after the man’s generous offer to house him in Stark Tower—that was as an Avenger. He assumed it wasn’t on a full-time basis. After all, Stark wasn’t looking for a child, but, Spider-Man.</p><p>So, he pushed on. Wore his way through the long working hours of his job, swung through the streets of Queens in the evening, used his scraps of change to buy the right amount of food, so that he could afford to eat something most days, and laid down to sleep under a thick blanket beside a row of bins.</p><p>Life continued on in a strange new normality. If normality could be passing through each day in a haze, pushed on only by the daily thrill of swinging from building to building and saving lives.</p><p> </p><p>It seemed, however, that he’d missed one vital factor in the equation. Tony Stark. Maybe it was because the variable was so spontaneous, erratic, and- well, himself. As Peter webbed up the last criminal of the evening (yet another bike thief) he heard the tell-tale whirr of repulsors. The noise caused him to stop in his tracks. He froze. The last time he remembered Iron Man coming to check up on him was… the ferry incident, he thought. As well as a couple calls through Karen during his patrol hours.</p><p>“Hello, Spider-Man.” Tony greeted, landing beside him, glowing eyes staring intensely. “Hadn’t heard from you in a while; thought I’d drop by, check how things’re hanging.”</p><p>Peter chuckled. “They’re, uh, fine, Mr Stark.” He began to walk onwards, groaning internally as he heard the metal clunks against the ground, which indicated that Tony was following him. “It’s late. I’m just finishing patrol, so…”</p><p>“Well, that’s great. I see you’ve done some great work, as always. However, I was less coming to stop by and chat business. More—about you. The man behind the mask.”</p><p>The boy quirked a brow, sparing a glance behind him. When he didn’t say anything, Tony elaborated.</p><p>“Whilst I see from Karen that you’ve been using the suit daily, that’s all. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate what you’re doing for the city, sticking low to the ground and all that— but, I haven’t heard from you. As in, Happy’s voicemail inbox is almost empty. I know the man might have complained about it before, but, secretly, between you and me, he loves the attention.”</p><p>When Tony stopped, Peter took from the hanging silence that he had to respond this time. However, he faltered for words. It wasn’t like he could explain that he’d sold his phone in the second week of being kicked out of the apartment in order to afford to eat.</p><p>“It broke.” He quickly answered. “I mean, my phone. It broke.” His voice was small, tone indicating just how weak the excuse was. “Dropped it on the floor. At school. Yeah, it broke.”</p><p>“Huh.” Tony remarked, with such a force that Peter stopped in his tracks to turn and look at the man. “That could explain why you’ve been absent from school for the past two months. Teenage embarrassment?”</p><p>Peter huffed. There wasn’t much he could say to that. He turned around and continued walking, a little faster this time.</p><p>“Look, kid, I may not be the best mentor—but I can tell that something’s wrong. After the plane incident, I swore that I’d pay more attention to our friendly neighbourhood spiderling. So…” he paused. “What is it?”</p><p>“Nothing!” Peter responded at once, perhaps with a little too much anger shining through. He cleared his throat. “Nothing.” He repeated in a calmer tone. “Just, stuff, y’know. Me’n May fell out.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. “About… Spider-Man.”</p><p>Tony made a noise of understanding. “See, that’s all I ask, kid. So—I’m gonna take a wild guess that your aunt didn’t know about Spider-Man before.” A shake of his head. “Alright. So, you want me to go over there, talk to her?”</p><p>Peter laughed. “No, it’s fine. I don’t think she wants to talk to you.”</p><p>Judging how the last thing she’d said to him was, <em>I never want to see you step foot in this place again, Peter—get out!</em>  He had a pretty good feeling that coming back with Tony Stark in tow would be a terrible idea.</p><p>“Understandable. I could phone her, or… You could mention to her that I want to talk. It’s not like she’s stopped you from going out as Spider-Man. However… this still doesn’t explain why you haven’t been in school.”</p><p>“I just didn’t wanna go.”</p><p>“That’s not legal, Pete.”</p><p>“I’ve been… I was ill.”</p><p>“And well enough to go out as Spider-Man every day?”</p><p>The teen found himself quickly falling down into a pit of excuses, all so different that he became entangled in them and the web of chaos they stuck him in.</p><p>He picked up his pace, staring straight ahead. “It’s not a problem, Mr Stark. It’s not <em>your </em>problem. I can handle this.”</p><p>“Then show me, Pete, that you’ve got it handled.” The clunk of metal against concrete. Tony was following him again. “Show me that you’re okay.”</p><p>“I am okay!” Peter stopped in the alleyway he’d found himself in, pulling the mask from his face. He ignored the sharp intake of breath Tony took at seeing his appearance. Surely, he wasn’t that bad. “I’m fine. I’m coping. I’m Spider-Man, I can deal with this. I don’t, I don’t need you breathing down my neck.”</p><p>“Okay, kid, I won’t—just, show me—”</p><p>“I don’t need to show you anything!” He dropped the mask on the floor. “You didn’t need to see before—”</p><p>“Is that yours, Peter?” Tony cut through his ranting. Peter glanced up, following where he pointed, to the folded-up blanket behind the row of bins, and the backpack webbed against the wall.</p><p>Peter opened and closed his mouth, gulping for air, searching in it for a flimsy excuse, but instead, all that came out was a sob. His shoulders heaved, arms drawing in around himself. Despite the fact the secret was out, he didn’t feel out of control. There was a clank as Tony stepped out of the suit, and then the cold isolation biting at Peter was smothered by Tony’s warm embrace.</p><p>“Everything’s gonna be okay, kiddo.”</p><p> </p><p>----</p><p>Tony pulled through on his offer to have Peter move into the Tower. It took a long hour, with tears and tissues and hugs, to tell the man the true extent of what had happened with May. The man disappeared for what seemed like only a few moments after his admission, to come back with a mug of hot chocolate and the promise that he didn’t have to worry about his aunt anymore.</p><p>It was weird, stepping into the room that Tony had designed for him. The walls were covered in Star Wars and science posters. The bed had plush red covers and a fluffy blue comforter draped over the foot end. There was a desk to the far side of the room, kitted with a laptop and room for his schoolbooks and work. After taking everything in, he launched into Tony with another hug and mumbled thanks.</p><p>“It’s fine. Everything will be okay, kiddo.”</p><p> </p><p>----</p><p>It took a while to get back to normal, but, as Tony assured, that was okay. The man gently eased him back into healthy amounts of food. He didn’t go slowly with the love, however. It was important that boy knew that he wasn’t alone.</p><p>Sometimes, the team visited. Peter came back to being more of his usual bouncy self through each shared meal and communication. When Mr Stark got him a new phone, after thanking the man profusely, he hesitantly contacted his friends and was met with a showering of affection. They hadn’t forgotten about him.</p><p>Soon, he was back to school. It was tough, sometimes, getting memories of his old life, of May, but things were getting better.</p><p> </p><p>It was a month or two after Tony had rescued him in that alleyway, when the adoption papers finally came in.</p><p><em>Peter Parker-Stark</em>, the words were written in cursive on the document.</p><p>“Everything is okay, Mr Stark.” This time, he was sure of it.</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed. I was gonna focus more on the aftermath and such but after several drafts, focusing on Peter's perspective of the situation, meant that there was more story to be had in Tony finding out. I also felt it better to keep it fluffy with the adoption and such because our boy needs a happy ending.</p><p>Also, apologies for doing this to Aunt May. I love her character and don't think she would ever abandon Peter like this, however, it was the best way to go about this story to me.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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